A quick recap… Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl’sParadise franchise of films, which follows 3 individual though interconnected stories of 3 women in love in 3 different locations, and is being released as three separate feature films, instead of 1 – Paradise: Love, Paradise: Faith and Paradise: Hope, was been picked up for USA distribution by Strand Releasing, with a 2013 release for all three films planned, starting in the first quarter.

So our readers in all of those territories should expect to see the films soon enough.

I haven’t seen an official release date announcement yet, but I was alerted to a brand new release trailer for the first film – Paradise: Love – from Strand Releasing, which debuted today on the The New York Times website, and within that trailer announcement is notice that the film will be opening Stateside on April 26!

No specific release cities, as I’m sure it’ll be a limited theatrical run; although it might also include simultaneous VOD/digital download options. I checked Strand’s website for info, but didn’t find any. But I’ve sent an email to them hoping for a reply soon enough on that.

The film hasn’t screened in my neck of the woods yet, so I haven’t seen it, even though it seems like we’ve been talking about it for a very long time.

Paradise: Love, which premiered in competition at Cannes earlier this year, is set in Kenya, and centers on a 50 year old white woman, sister of a missionary and a mother, who gets involved with a Kenyan “beach boy” as the director describes the character, until she realizes that, in short, this relationship of theirs is really just business – aka *sex tourism*.

Ulrich describes the woman as a “sugar mama” who’s desperate to find love and acceptance, and at the behest of a friend, she goes on vacation to Kenya, where she hopes to find what she’s missing, and hooks up with some young Kenyan stud who may or may not be really interested in her, and who may or may not be a hustler/male prostitute.

As noted previously, there’s so much here to uncover, analyze and critique; and despite early reservations about the film, I’m still very curious about it. I don’t want to jump to conclusions without having seen it first.

As I noted in my first post on the project, Paradise: Love reminds me of Laurent Cantet’s 2005 film Heading South (or Vers le sud) in which the filmmaker breached a similar topic (although set in Haiti not Kenya), but, by some accounts from those who’ve seen both films, handled the material better than Seidl does in his film.

It’s actually an idea/theme that’s ripe for exploration on film, even though this won’t be the first time, and presents lots of opportunities to dissect matters of race, class, globalization, and subjects that seem to have been rendered taboo; my concern, as always, is just how the filmmaker (often an “outsider”) carries out his/her exploration; the direction and POV taken.

Some reactions to the film, from those who’ve seen it:

FromCédric Succivalli, president of the International Cinephile Society and Cannes insider:

PARADISE : LOVE is beyond abominable, I want to forget about it right now.

Ulrich Seidl’s PARADISE: LOVE Doesn’t Flinch, But You Might… confrontational, often ugly depiction of different forms of desperation and exploitation set against a sex tourism backdrop, and indeed, the audience seemed split between vehement disgust and fervent praise.

Ahh… one of those polarizing films. Got it! Like I said, we’ll just have to wait until one of us here at S&A sees it. And now that it’s heading to USA theaters in about a month (I’m sure it’ll play in New York), one of us will see it, and will review it after.

It’s worth noting that director Seidl’s films have always been very frank, raw and controversial; he had some trouble financing this trilogy; the other 2 films, by the way, will be Paradise: Faith, which is also now screening on the film festival circuit:

– A woman who spends her vacation proselytizing with statues of the Madonna until her husband, a Muslim, comes back from Egypt. They sing, they pray and they fight. “Wandering Madonna” is a filmic Pieta with the stations of the cross depicting a marriage.

And… Paradise: Hope

– The third story shows a young woman, overweight and curious. While her mother goes to Kenya, she spends her holidays at a dietary camp somewhere at the Semmering. There she falls in love with a doctor, 40 years older. She loves him with the exclusiveness of a first love. He however fights it – knowing that this cannot happen.

We’ll be watching out for the other 2.

Here’s the brand new release trailer (with English subtitles) for Paradise: Love, which Strand will open on April 26: